July 4, 2016
Todays visits! Nompie
came with us. Nompie is the Water Adminstrator of Swaziland. We visited 3 wells. We traveled the whole length of Swaziland in this tour.
The 1st well we stopped at was called
Hlabangamehlo which covers 50 homesteads about 150 people. We passed a group of people we thought were
there for us. They were registering for
food with the drought.
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| Government crew putting on the hand pump lever |
At this well, we viewed the government workers putting in
the pump and the wand to pump it with, it being a hand pump. We witnessed water coming out of the
well. I was surprised we did not have
community members there to celebrate the water coming out. They were all at the food registration. The foundation needs to be built yet.
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| Water at last |
It was so exciting to be there when the water actually came
out of the well.!!
The 2nd well was called Ncuthu Hand Pump. This was very close to the 1st
well and one we had seen when we visited last time.
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| Broken Mthoutela Hand pump |
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| Too many joints Mthoutela |
I am
glad they did the pump first so people can get water while the foundation is
being finished. Nompie suggested they
let the drain off water go into a reservoir for the animals to drink from a
little distance from the fence so there is no contamination.
These pictures show the before and after of the Mthoutela well. There were just too
many joints. It had been fixed too many
times to be fixed again. The first
picture of the refurbish shows the fence around it with a gate being installed. It looks better.
This picture shows Nompie pumping the water at this
well. We are so excited and so are the
people.
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| Nompie, Water Administrator for Swaziland |
At this second well, we saw some of the community members
here, some washing clothes and another to get water. It is good to see the community there when we
came.
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| Water committee |
On our way to the third well, we saw the same well we had
seen the last time we visited. At that time, we
had Sithole and Mthulie Florence Mamba in our car along with another
colleague. We mentioned this well and
the concern that the gate was not closed. It
had a great fence and a lockable gate but it was left open and we could see
footprints of animals all inside the fence.
Mthulie immediately called the Water Committee leader for this
well. The answer was that there are
people getting water who are not a member of the water community area so they leave
it open for them. HUMMMMM! This time, we saw the
same thing only donkeys were inside the fence and the gate was wide open. The Water committee leader was called again. She
said there were youngsters that had gotten water and forgot to close the
gate.
These are the kind of concerns we hope to work out in the Community Trainings. When we went back by, the youngsters had
chased out the animals and closed the gate but I could see extensive animal
tracks all over inside that fence.
CONTAMINATION!!!! Scare.
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| installing the gate |
This third well was called Mthoutela. This is the well that Nompie had mentioned in front of the WASH conference complimenting us for our help in meeting the Swaziland Water Goals for 2022 . These
people at Mthoutela were dancing because they finally had water. When we got here, there was no more dancing. The water pump had broken after only 10 days of working. The same Government workers
that were at the first well were here working on the foundation but there was no water flowing from the
well. The draw rods had come lose and it
no longer could pump up the water. Soooo
sad. The government workers did not have the right
equipment to pull the top off and find the lose rod. They said they would come back tomorrow.
I am glad for one
thing. The community of Mthoutela all support the well.
We stopped at a couple of wells along the way that are not
the wells we are providing materials for .
Nompie really cares about water for her country. She was just checking and made notes on the
needs she could see.
We appreciate the principles the Swaziland Government holds true. This is why they are a good partner.
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